Friendless in St. Paul

Posted 4:49 p.m., May 9, 2004

by Kevin Featherly

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In its way, St. Paul is beginning to look a lot like Washington, D.C.

That's not to say you'll find underground transport anywhere in the Minnesota capitol, but you will find plenty of underhanded politics. Witness the case of Sen. Sheila Kiscaden (pictured).

Until late last week, Kiscaden, the only Independence Party legislator, caucused with the Republicans. A 12-year incumbent, Kiscaden was first elected to the Legislature as a Republican when the state GOP still called itself the "Independent Republicans"--a legacy of the days when it was dissociating itself from the Nixon White House.

But last week, Kiscaden was dumped from the GOP caucus, partly because she took a stand against a tax bill and a bonding bill this session, bills she thought did not serve the interests of her Rochester area constituents.

When I talked to Kiscaden Friday, she told me that she always took the "independent" portion of the party's old name quite seriously. It allowed her to put her constituency first, her party second. Back then, it was easy to maintain that attitude. No more.

"When I was elected 12 years ago, there were I think 24 Republicans and about nine of us were moderates. ... As of this year there were 31 Republicans--and me--in that caucus. And none of the [Republicans] would call themselves 'moderate.'"

-- Sheila Kiscaden, IP-Rochester

Kiscaden was forced out of the Republican Party during the 2002 campaign when she was unable to convince GOP party activists to nominate her for re-election because of her pro-choice stance on abortion (the same thing happened that year to Sen. Martha Robertson, who ran as the running mate to Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny).

Kiscaden won reelection as an Independence Party member, taking more than 40 percent of the vote in a three-way race.

Kiscaden's ouster last week from the GOP caucus, which forced her to scramble for new office space, is more than a matter of mere inconvenience or insult to one legislator. It's a sign of the extent to which ideological partisanship has metastasized in our public policy.

The very term "public policy" seems an anachronism. This isn't really public policy anymore. It's party policy, the solidification of an if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us era of radical partisanship.

The Legislature stands on the cusp of ending a session without accomplishing one single task of consequence, which the Star Tribune today says would be a first in state history. And for all the impact he's having on legislators, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty would do just as well if he were representing the Greens.

"Pawlenty's Republican comrades in the House have rejected his premier public works projects and key elements of his budget-balancing plan. DFLers have two of his department heads on the scaffold, and he lost another one to a forced resignation. His stadium proposal is crippled, his plan to restore the death penalty is dead, and a proposal he has backed for a ballot question on banning gay marriage appears unlikely."

-- Dane Smith and Patricia Lopez,
Star Tribune

Is this inaction what Minnesotans are electing politicians for? Probably not. But Minnesotans are hardly alone.

The Red and the Blue

As David Broder noted in his May 6 Washington Post column, the entire United States political structure is becoming sharply divided politically along "red" (Republican) and "blue" (Democratic) lines. What that really means is staunchly liberal and staunchly conservative lines. There is very little room left in which moderates can move.

The moderate Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania barely survived a primary challenge from right-wing conservative Rep. Pat Toomey, winning by only 12,600 votes out of more than 1 million cast. Now he faces serious challenges on the Democratic side, and might wind up having a far-right third-party challenge to contend with from folks who may well prefer to have a Democrat elected than an impure moderate Republican.

Broder puts the Specter picture into context:

"The centrist coalition of conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans that set Congress's agenda for decades in the middle of the 20th century has been steadily depopulated by tugs from opposite political poles.

"Scores of House and Senate seats once held by moderate-conservative southern Democrats have moved to the Republicans. And voters in New York, New England and the northern tier from Michigan west to Washington, who once sent progressive Republicans to the House and Senate, now send Democrats instead.

"...This realignment has been so gradual that its effects are often overlooked. But when we awoke to the fact that the leaders of the newly installed Republican majorities in 1995 came from Georgia and Mississippi, while the last two Democrats to serve as Senate leaders came from once-Republican Maine and South Dakota, the dramatic turnaround was unmistakable."

-- David Broder,
The Washington Post

Minnesota Mangle

It takes little effort to see that a team-sports-run-amok culture has descended on our politics, and that it is less than productive, whether in Minnesota or nationally. Very little of consequence is getting done. Look to Congress and ask yourself: what is the last piece of genuine landmark American legislation? Hint: It ain't the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

If you guessed the Medicare and Civil Rights bills of 1965, past yourself on the back. You win a bottle of Maalox.

Minnesota, home of "the Minnesota Miracle" of yore, has like the federal government stymied its politics. And for much the same reason. The process has been overtaken by the far wings of the two major parties. Moderates like Sheila Kiscaden are being marginalized, and are either dropping out of the process or falling away as dwindling voter participation rates leave voting--and thus the choice of government--to the dominion of our electorate's agitated edges.

"And the moderates in the legislative process are the folks who work on the public policy, reach across the aisle, kind of bring the conservatives and the liberals together and find solutions."

-- Sen. Sheila Kiscaden, IP-Rochester

The situation is so polarized that more than one legislator has told me that caucus leadership actively discourages members even from socializing with opposition party members. Kiscaden told me she has heard several GOP legislators dressed down within earshot of her, for talking too much to Democrats.

So much for building working relationships. So much for the spirit of compromise. So much for solutions.

Sen. Dick Day, the Republican minority leader who unilaterally dumped Kiscaden from the caucus, bluntly told the Pioneer Press that the Independence Party senator needs to become "truly independent." He said one problem he had with her was Kiscaden's propensity for shuttling back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, communicating with members of both parties. "It just doesn't work very good," he said.

Huh? Excuse me?

"It's contrary to the way I think I'm supposed to serve. I'm not a shy person and so I raise my hand and raise questions and say, 'No, I'm not going to do it that way,' or, 'No I'm not going to vote that way.' And that has not been appreciated. ... The conservatives get wild when you say this, but we moderates don't feel welcome."

-- Sen. Sheila Kiscaden, IP-Rochester

The irony, Kiscaden indicates, is that she was leaning toward returning to the Republican Party at some point, she just wasn't ready quite yet. Don't bet on her returning to the fold now.

Will Kiscaden become a Democrat instead? The DFL is openly courting her, and has given her a primo office overlooking the river from which to caucus. But don't bet on her switching to the DFL either.

I don't think I'm going to become a Democrat, but [Day] has made it (pause) ... . For me, it's just one more time that the Republican leadership--be it the party activists or the caucus leadership or the party spokesmen--have said, 'As a moderate, you're not really welcome here. As a moderate, you're not wanted. As a moderate, you're not one of us.'"

-- Sen. Sheila Kiscaden, IP-Rochester

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